Last Updated on October 5, 2026
Status: specified, not yet collected. This page sets out a study Whito has designed and will run. It contains no findings. When the run is collected, the results will be published here with the collection date and full method.
Landscaping is an unlicensed trade with five-figure jobs and real deposits, where the only checkable records are Companies House and the voluntary member lists of BALI and the APL. When an engine recommends a landscaper, nothing in the answer says whether any of those records would recognise the name. This study checks all of them for every name.
The question we will ask
“Recommend a landscaper in [town]”, with the town name substituted for each of the twelve.
Engines: ChatGPT, Gemini and Google AI Mode, asked the same question on the same day, each in a fresh session.
Where
Twelve UK towns and cities, the same set Whito uses across its register studies: Leeds, Manchester, Birmingham, Bristol, Sheffield, Nottingham, Leicester, Coventry, Newcastle, Cardiff, Southampton and Brighton.
The register, and how every name gets classed
No licence exists, so every recommended name goes against the records that do: Companies House for the entity, and the BALI and APL member searches. Each name lands in exactly one class:
- Member, active company. On BALI or APL’s list and verifiable at Companies House.
- Active company, no membership. Lawful and common; everything rests on the contract and the evidence the firm can show.
- Unverifiable. No matchable company record under the trading name or a traceable legal name. Sole traders will be noted as such rather than counted as failures.
- Dissolved. The entity behind the recommendation is gone from the register.
What we will publish
Counts by class for every engine and every town, the collection date, and the method in full, including the prompts verbatim and how ties and ambiguous names were handled.
Why this check, in this trade
A landscaping customer hands over a deposit for a garden that does not exist yet, in a trade with no licence, on the strength of a recommendation. The records that can be checked take minutes. The study measures how much of what the engines serve would survive them, and how often a confident answer is a name no record knows.
ed, and gave a registration number twice. https://whito.co.uk/gas-engineers/research/ai-gas-engineer-recommendations-gas-safe/. Free to quote with a link.Corrections and right of reply
If your business is named in this research and you think we have a fact wrong, email hello@whito.co.uk. We check it against the register, correct it within five working days if we are wrong, and publish your statement alongside if you want us to. Full route: corrections, right of reply and removals.
Questions
Can I trust an AI answer that says a gas engineer is Gas Safe registered?
Treat it as a claim to check. On 3 October 2026, 36 answers from ChatGPT, Gemini and Google AI Mode in 12
If your business is named here and you think we have a fact wrong, email hello@whito.co.uk and we will check it and correct it. If you want to respond, send us a statement and we will publish it alongside. Full detail: Corrections, right of reply and removals.
